“How do you think this second team is practicing? They strike fast and hard and seemingly with a lot of power.”

Lin Zhaotong shook his head. “Indeed, they strike fast and ruthlessly, but their power isn’t really great. It’s just that they know more techniques on how to exert force.”

“Techniques to exert force… this kind of stuff really works?” the captain said helplessly. “The most important thing about strength is to train the muscles, build up mass, and you’ll have it naturally.”

Lin Zhaotong grunted, and after a moment’s silence, he said, “I actually don’t find power and attack speed difficult. I think you guys should be able to do it too; what I find most outrageous is their coordination and control of the battlefield.”

The captain of the main team was a little puzzled.

Lin Zhaotong continued, “I’ve been observing every game and even recorded videos, watching and studying it over and over again. Their performance at first glance looks like it’s just fast, but I think they have very keen battle instincts. When to attack and when to cooperate, they distinguish this very clearly and are quite well coordinated.”

“The difference is in experience?” The captain of the first team frowned. “It doesn’t make sense that they would have more combat experience than we do. At least we’ve been in three tournaments, this is their first time in combat.”

“It could be actual combat experience elsewhere. For example, their internal sparring.” Li Zhaotong shrugged. “They’re Qi Shaoqiu’s students after all.”

“That makes sense.” The captain of the first team looked at Qi Shaoqiu, his gaze burning.

Soon the eight-team tournament began, and this time Roland and the others encountered the Korean team.

The Korean team was worse than Russia’s second team, such that they didn’t even need to cooperate. They simply just went up and hacked away.

Roland and the others thought this was quite normal. The Korean team was about the same size as they were and far weaker than Russia’s second team.

The livestream audience was excited, clamoring for them to avenge the national soccer team.

In the final four matches, they encountered Russian’s third team.

By this time the Russians had noticed the dark horse that was the second team and had prepared specifically to take them on.

However, it was still useless. It only took an extra ten seconds to knock them down.

Then it was the championship.

Almost all eyes were focused on the center of the stadium.

The female streamer held up her phone with a portable charger attached to it as she nervously said, “Finally, it’s time for the championship match. I hope the second team wins.”

There were also a bunch of bullet-screen comments in the livestream praying for a win for the national team, but of course, there were always people who liked to dampen others’ enthusiasm.

Almost all of the country’s team captains turned on the video recording on their phones.

They felt that if this dark horse of a national team could beat the Russian team, there must be something they could learn from their formations, battle tactics, and so on.

The Russian team lined up in a compact 3-2 formation this time.

It did act as some protection against surprise attacks, but it was still useless.

The main Russian team was indeed a little better than their second team, but only by a little; they were not substantially different.

Roland and the others had already been through a lot of battles, big and small, in the game; all of them were life or death battles.

Roland’s combat experience was arguably the least outstanding amongst them, but it had to be better than the opposite side.

At this moment, Li Lin and Raffel, the melee professionals, truly showed what cold weapon combat was all about.

Although their opponents were much larger, the two used the center of gravity and shield fighting skills they had learned in the game to break through the opposite side’s defensive formation and knock down two men.

After that, it was easy. With miaodaos, three of them kept their distance and pincer-attacked with the other two, cutting down the remaining three Russians.

One of the Russians was tough, hugging the fence and refusing to fall, an almost shameless act. Raffel had no thought of being polite, hitting hard with a shield strike and a longsword slap across the opponent’s helmet.

After a rapid succession of blows, the Russian was actually knocked unconscious.

After obtaining the victory, Roland and the others were treated almost as heroes, but they were not excited and left the arena without even taking off their helmets.

Since single-player battles were coming up, the award ceremony would have to wait until four days later, which was just what Roland and the others wanted, as they refused to be interviewed by the female streamer and went straight back to the contestant area, taking off their armor and slipping away.

They then traveled around Jingnan for a day and a half before taking the high-speed train home. As for the trophy and prize money, Qi Shaoqiu would claim it in their stead.

Roland threw his backpack on the floor and couldn’t wait to turn on his computer, as the server update ended in the evening and the server reopened.

He wanted to see if there was any important news or content on the forum, but all he could find was idiotic netizens spamming posts like “Time is so hard to pass” and “I’m dying without a game to play” and other posts without substance.

It was hard to wait until ten in the evening. Roland, already washed up, got into the virtual cabin.

He soon fell asleep, and when he woke up, he found himself standing in the middle of the manor’s study.

Roland took a deep breath, the magic in the air pouring into this body like water.

He was stunned for a moment. Before he left, he was obviously full of MP… so how come now, his MP was almost completely gone?

He breathed out and sat back in his chair.

Then he looked around and a feeling of comfort came over him.

Although he had loved ones in the real world, he had to admit that it was this world that made him feel more comfortable.

The ubiquitous magic could fill his mental void.

After sitting in his chair for a while, Roland realized that his MP was a fifth of the way up and no longer affected his movement, so he opened the door and went out, and then saw a maid on the sidewalk staring at him agape.

Roland was wondering why the maid looked like she had seen a ghost.

The maid then turned and ran, shouting as she did so, “The Master is back, the Master is back!”

“Huh?”

Roland was even more bewildered.

At this moment, Roland suddenly heard a swishing sound and a silhouette appeared in front of him, leaving a dozen afterimages along the way.

Then he felt himself being embraced in a warm hug.

“You’re back, finally!” It was a familiar voice, containing a trace of hidden bitterness. “You’ve been gone for 21 days, I thought you didn’t want me either!”

Andonara cried pear-shaped tears. Her expression was haggard and she even took on an air of sickness and weakness.

21 days?

Roland understood something.

At this moment, there was the sound of running from the stairway and Vivian appeared in the corridor with her skirt lifted. When she saw Roland, she wiped her red eyes hard with her hand.

Seven days! 21 days!

Roland found it odd that the servers used to routinely shut down every day and the time in this world would stop.

However, why was it that time was still passing during this update?